4 (2004) User Reviews

Involving, Varied

[jon-370 · 7/10 · 11 June 2005]

Was this Andy Warhol's "Pets or Meat" ? or Henry Jaglom's "Motel Hell"? Possibly Mike Leigh's "Night of the Living Dead"? Anyway, this film has my nomination for best ever use of clones with crones, and also for best use of crones overall. Did you know that if you play this film it matches up very well with Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain"? No? Well maybe it doesn't but it should! Try it!

I found this film consistently involving even though it became increasingly unpleasant and difficult to categorize or interpret. It appeared to have two distinct halves, each with different pacing and tone. The lively and stimulating first half took place in the city (Moscow?) and showed the stories of several characters unfolding. The 2nd half focused on one character and a separate set of people she knew in the country (until the very ending bits). This 2nd half was more claustrophobic, squalid, and disturbing.

After the Seattle 2005 screening during the Q/A session with the director, one Russian woman ranted at him for an act of "treason" in this disturbing portrayal of Russian life, and said it and he were "dirty!", asking him where he lived *now*, he must have been well paid for this, etc. He responded that unlike her he still lived in Russia, that in fact life was *harder* than he portrayed and that Russians drank *more* than he portrayed, etc. After she walked out, he explained that her reaction was typical of the culturally *soviet* people in Russia, who were brought up to always present the best face of Russia at all times.

Not a great date movie- unless your date is insane

[gabbette · 8/10 · 23 June 2005]

Don't worry, I'm not going to give away the ending- couldn't even if I wanted to. Not really sure what the ending was, the screen went black & the house lights went up but that was the only clue I had the the "story" was over. Let me put it this way- during one scene an entire row of people got up and left muttering things like "This isn't a movie! I don't know what this was but how dare he!" and "Go back to Russia" That's when I knew that the director was really on to something. Again, not really sure what he is on to or into for that matter but this movie is definitely worth seeing. It's beautifully shot, one scene more enthralling than the previous one, the acting is great especially since I don't think any of the actors are actually actors & the sound & music brought on an acid flashback. All pluses in my book. It's not for the faint of heart or vegetarians. Good luck. (FYI- my spell check tells me that I write at a 6th grade level so what do I know-)

An effort that pays off

[alison-jasonides · 8/10 · 29 March 2007]

Firstly, this film was a gorgeous object. The way shots were set up and filmed deserve praise. Perhaps its nothing new to explore the grotesqueness of the babushka's wrinkled, hollow faces, or the eating etiquette (or lack there of) of peasants in close quarters on a train. I kept thinking someone must have just been watching a Fellini movie marathon-- or even some Sergio Leone spaghetti western before filming these scenes. However, behind every image that seemed repulsive or bleak or even hackneyed, I could not stop watching or being in awe that I was seeing such beauty. The sound-- not just the music and the singing and wailing of the characters, but the sound scape of each scene-- trains, drills, boots marching in thick mud, insect chirps-- had me watching the movie with the volume way up. The story was initially engaging, and as many of the reviewers here state, it seemed to unravel from a tightly set-up premise into some sort of meditation-- which was fine with me. Granted, I was confused at times, wondering where Marina was going after watching her trudge through the decaying Russian countryside for fifteen on-screen minutes, or what revelation would come out of Zoya's wake scene or the drunken feast scene. It was challenging to watch it all in one sitting, solely, i think, because most movies have trained us--definitely me- to look for action-reaction, immediate gratification in their storytelling. I had to view this two hour movie in three increments. It was well worth it. I'm not sure what everything means: is Marina one of the four "Doubles", one of the diseased ones that her drinking partner in the bar described? What is the significance of the dogs verses the machines? What changes so that Marat begins selling ground beef (thats incidentally nine years old)? I don't know, and really, does it matter? I kept thinking of "Amores Perros" as I watched "4": the dog motif, the intertwined stories, the life-altering connections to strangers, the revelatory windows on a culture which both these movies are. But "4" seems rougher, less slick and more of a feat to have completed. The voyeur in me was very excited to see two versions of the female body. The sisters naked in the sauna contrasted so deeply with the old crones' drunken striptease and breast-play, not only for the obvious reason that younger breasts and flesh are more aesthetically pleasing than the expired, sagging skin of aged peasant ladies without moisturizer, but also because, even with their taut beauty, the younger women seem to find no pleasure whatsoever in their bodies-- one selling hers even-- while at least the babushkas find humor and even delight in what is under all those layers of raggedy clothes. Bravo to the women who agreed to film those scenes!

i;m not sure what i just saw

[mbs · 6/10 · 27 April 2006]

I;m not sure what this movie was. The first half hour is a good talk piece where these three strangers--2 men and a woman-- pull up stools next to each other in a bar and proceed to bull each other, either i think to make the other people think that they're interesting, or just to kid around. Its actually quite a good set piece as it gets going, you;re kind of just a fly on the wall in that bar, just sitting' around watching these three, and just like watching three strangers talk in real life, you learn about the people as the conversation goes on, (learn for instance that they're all actually lying to each other and don't actually do what they say, which is kinda interesting, because as they were talking i was already trying to picture what the rest of the movie was gonna be like based on what they were talking about.

note to self--don't do that anymore! you're not in America here!, here in America we like to predict what comes next sir!!!)

seriously though watching just the half hour, you might think all right enough talking already, get to the action, but i believe as it goes on, it gets more interesting. Then of course, they all leave, go their separate ways, and then the real story starts, such as it is. you see where the men go after wards, one goes to eat dinner then home to his dad, the other ends up getting arrested for suspicious involvement of his missing neighbor (i think) then it goes to morning, and the movie by and large starts focusing on the woman of the trio.

The woman gets a message on her machine that her sister (????) Zoya has died, then there's a great like 5-10 minute scene in which the camera follows her in closeup as she cuts through this barbed wire fence, and walks through all these fields, walking, walking, walking, all keeping her in closeup, then when the camera pulls out, and you see she;s been walking to the burial site of her sister, its a very nice kind of whoa effect--as in did the camera just stop moving, or did she just stop moving? its cool, take my word for it! anyways this leads into a really bizarre set of scenes in which the film then changes its focus onto the woman's elders in her family. you now have the pleasure of seeing a number of semi-gross (actually really gross) scenes of a bunch of toothless old women munching (or should i say gumming) these giant slabs of lamb meat. and drinking o plenty.

my favorite recurring scene among these scenes is an old lady who keeps waving her arms and shouting while running from wherever she is to her shack to fill up her cup of vodka or whatever she;s drinking, seriously this happens a couple of times, where the action we were just watching becomes completely interrupted by this old woman running (and the camera keeping her front and center the whole time) screaming, arms waving, stopping to drink, oh that's Ole aunt Agatha, she loves her drink she does. (what???) after she drinks she keeps waking her son up from his sleep demanding that he drink what she just drank, (its time to get up and drink! DAG Nat) this happens a couple of times, enough that i thought the projectionist accidentally looped the same scene twice over, just because i thought it possible! this is in no way relevant to the plot, except maybe to show how old ladies, and in a larger sense, how an old family(???) stays together in Ole Russia. A friend remarked to me that it was similar to watching a National Geographic Special on local customs of old women of a certain tribe in Russia. They may have something there!!!!

I did;t even mention the giant replicas (masks) of people made completely out of bread that was the beloved Zoya's specialty, or the grieving boyfriend who growling drunkenly all the way takes all these molds and lays them out in his shed and cries with them, before burring them, and what not. Needless to say, I did't get a lot of the symbolism right off, particularly in the wild bread mask thing, i'm not sure what that was about. but anyways that's about as coherent a summery as i can offer as to what this movie was about. (Oh yeah and in between the scenes of the old women you get snippets of what's happening to the other two men, one gets sent off to prison, and the other is trying to move his dad out his house, eventually these two do intersect again at the end of the movie, but sadly not with each other, but you do get to see them inter-cut with each other at the end, right before the big money end scene which involves yes an old woman singing!)

so basically this movie can be split in two--the first part the nice building conversation between the three strangers in the bar, and the weird old ladies of Russia tribal burial saga, and as to what it was all about, i;m not quite sure, that i'll leave up to you fine folks here at the IMDb, but i sure look forward to reading you're submissions, and lastly i;d just like to say, i would actually like to see this movie again at some point, just to be able to say official's and for the record, yep i'm really not sure what i just saw, but i;d sure like to drink with that crazy Ole lady!

The most weird thing

[ludovic391 · 10/10 · 21 July 2005]

I've seen this film some weeks ago. When i came out of the room, I was disturbed. The first hour is pleasant, showing us a funny conversation between three persons who are tying to create something interesting about their being. Then, the long trip in the strange land where degenerated old ladies live is mind shocking, repetitive and hard to see. But the effect is clear. When you felt the isolation, the promiscuity watching Dogville, Chetyre gives you the same medication with a ten times harder concentration. A few weeks after seeing it, you keep a clear and screeching memory. This film is an experience, it brings something different, some points of view are bothering, but a strange feeling added to gorgeous landscape remain in your head after seeing it.

Mesmerizing but infuriating first feature

[Chris Knipp · 6/10 · 14 June 2012]

The screenplay of "4" is credited to edgy contemporary Russian author Vladimir Sorokin, and in case you think movies aren't serous business any more, reportedly everybody who worked on making "4" was beaten by angry viewers. It may be that Khzhanovsky went a little haywire in the latter part of the 2-hour-plus film, losing some of Sorokin's structure because he became a little too taken up with a lively and colorful group of wizened crones who are the actual inhabitants of the remote village to which protagonist Marina goes for the funeral and wake for her (twiin?) sister. Did the crones actually get drunk on the vodka they are shown swilling in the wake scene and thereafter? Was the camera-work meant to grow increasingly sloppier? Warning to young filmmakers: don't let colorful locations run away with your picture. Nonetheless this is a humdinger. Dangerous to be so provocative with your first big feature film. It made him famous (or notorious), but it was six years till he finished another film (Dau, an epic biography of the scientist Lev Landau, which is now in post-production).

The film begins slowly but intriguingly with a half-hour sequence of three people telling lies to each other at an after hours bar, inventing fantastic occupations. Marina, who is a whore, pretends to be in advertising. A stylish, somewhat effete man who is really a meat dealer claims to purvey spring water to the president. The other man, deadpan chain smoker with a crewcut who later admits to Marina he's a piano tuner, tells a preposterous and revolting story about being a geneticist involved in cloning of humans that he claims has gone on since the Stalin era. "4" refers to the habit of cloning double twins. When he gets into a tale of homosexual rape among black clones in a slum the meat broker goes off in a huff. His discovery of "round" piglets sold at a fancy restaurant is assurance, if needed, that "4' is bizarre and surreal. Everybody has written about it. The Times called it "mysterious" and "mesmerizing," and Jonothan Rosenbaum wrote about it favorably (though I can't access his review -- some of the online archives don't go back as far as 2005 or 2006).

Although at the one-hour mark, with the film half over, things only are beginning to happen, and that's not very good, the opening sequence at the bar, even if over- long, is atmospheric and intriguing. One excellent and admiring review by Ty Burr of the Boston Globe described the scene as a surreal, futuristic Russian version of Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks" "come to life with a script by a post modernist prankster"(and Burr identifies Sorokin as "one of the more controversial voices in post-Soviet literature"). But it's scary and provocative rather than dreary. It's interesting to begin with three characters who are quite mysterious. Unfortunately the film delves into the meat broker's life only briefly, and the pretend geneticist piano tuner not at all. Perhaps it was best to stick to one of the three, to give the film unified focus, but it still makes things feel structurally left dangling. Doubtless the round pigs, the shaggy-dog bar conversations, the Stalin-era meat preserved in a vast freezer at 28º (below?), the large dolls whose heads are made of chewed bread, are all products of the fevered imagination of Vladimir Sorokin. So too are the repetitions of doubling, doubling scenes, twins, the fantastic clone tales, hinting that the world has gone mad and gone bad. Unfortunately the barking dogs, the endless trek cross-country to a wake peopled by colorful locals already had the quality of déjâ-vu, maybe because I've recently seen similar sequences in Ceylan's Once Upon a Time in Anatolia and the Bulgarian Konstantin Bojanov's Avé, and I think I've seen it before that. I'll bet Emir Kosturica did some sequence like this somewhere. This movie is accomplished, ambitious in its eccentricity. Some of it nonetheless reminded me of Harmony Korine's Trash Humpers. And it made me appreciate Sokurov and Zvyagintsev even more, and, in a more popular vein, Bekmambetov, who's an entertainer and a technical dazzler, and no slouch in the surrealism department. Certainly, though, "4" is very much in the Russian vein. The sound design, though typically grating and overblown, is technically the film's most original aspect.

thank god it exists...

[sheif · 5/10 · 28 August 2006]

thank god ilya K made this film, even though it doesn't add up to anywhere near as much as it could have.

This is in many ways a very talented first-time directors art-house showcase film, pinching ideas willy nilly (not least from a certain Russian photographer) and rubbing the audience's face relentlessly, and to some degree a little unnecessarily, in his inventiveness. If it was calculated to make him the darling of festivals, which I'm sure was hardly the main point, it worked.

Does it hide its shock tactics structural weaknesses (the second half is a real, repetitive mess) behind notions of the auteur, of interpretive demands that must be made on an audience, on "social comment", and the usual avant=gardist stuff? Yeah, it does. That doesn't mean it's worthless. You just wish that Ilya K and Sorokin, apparently a great novelist, had thought a little more about cinematic narrative forms and what you can do with them.

That said, it's an unforgettable, beautiful mess of an artwork.

Excellent movie, but not for everybody

[jetset001 · 10/10 · 3 September 2005]

For me, it is one of the best Russian movies of the year 2005. It takes to what is called "collective unconscious" - but I guess only if y're Russian about 30 y.o. living in large city:) I was really amazed by Ilya Chrzhanovsky's astonishing work because it's his first full-length movie. Vladimir Sorokin, who wrote the script, is very scandalous author who loves to shock audience. Besides, he is obviously postmodernist, so his stories are always full of different layers of meaning, contain a lot of symbols. Often you can't understand for sure whether he is kidding or being serious. The last but not the least, the movie is brilliant at camera work and has an amazing soundtrack.

I would recommend this movie to people who like B-movies, independent and artistic movies. Though even then you should watch it on a dull Sunday or something.

[Zagrad · 6/10 · 11 December 2006]

I am not sure about this movie. In the beginning there was a long conversation in a bar. This conversation was so amazingly good. It really intrigued me and kept my interest.

Though I was watching this movie on a Saturday night. Normally I can keep focused even when a movie is a bit boring. This movie though was so amazingly boring that none of us could keep focused.

While chatting with each other I saw only parts of the movie and saw some really interesting camera shots. Also there were really weird, shocking parts and funny parts. The movie is real slow though.

For what I saw I would recommend this movie to people who like B-movies, independent and artistic movies. Though even then you should watch it on a dull Sunday or something.

For all other people I just wouldn't recommend this movie, because they won't like it. Personally I might be watching this movie again sometime as I was intrigued by it and am still wondering what was the real clue of the movie.

Trapped!

[probablypretty · 3/10 · 2 March 2006]

I saw the film at the Belgrade Film Festival last week, and I'm still working off the trauma. Essentially my view seems to match a number of others - the first half hour was fresh, sharp, deep, entertaining and promising. Well acted too. Natural. My problem, however, is not simply with the fact that the final hour and a half of the film have nothing to do with the likable beginning, nor the fact that I spent most of this time convulsing in agony at sharp, grating industrial sounds and squinting at drunken, toothless, bread-chewing hags. It's rather with the fact that THEY NEVER WARNED ME!!! The festival brochure synopsis described only the (utterly intriguing-sounding) first half hour - a whore, piano tuner and meat seller chat in a bar, pretending to be an advertising agent, genetic engineer, and petty government administration official, respectively - making no mention whatsoever of the never-ending gum-smacking to come. Serves me right for not reading the reviews, you might say - but to my defense, a number of reviews I looked at post-fact um didn't at all stress the immensity and utter unbearableness of the greater part of the film.

The first hint should have been the introductory words by the director (a bashful, tousle-haired Russian youth) who stepped in front of the crammed auditorium (the film seems to be doing incredibly well critically, and tickets were sold out well in advance of the screening, though most of the audience seemed as unaware as I was of the pain to come, judging by the plethora of unearthly moans and groans that utterly permeated the theatre during the last half hour, and many exasperated comments on exit) to say the following: 'Well, I... um, thank you very much for coming to see this film, and I just wanted to say... well, it's a very long film... it took me four years to make it, and... it's.. I suggest that you see it and immediately try to forget about it. It is very long. Thank you for coming.' This is what he said. Alarm bells should have been ringing. 'What's he talking about?' I thought in happy confusion. 'This is gonna be fun!' Of course, by the time his strangely apologetic comments started making sense to me, it was far too late to get out. All I could do is writhe in increasing agony until the lights came on again. And in the end I can't say I feel in any way improved by the experience. Yes, I absolutely loved the first half hour. It was intelligent, new, and had a lot to say. And yes, Russia is probably in a bad state. Yes, every society has many hidden faces. Yes, toothless life in barren wastelands is probably unimaginably hard. Yes yes yes. I get all of this. Really I do. But I see no earthly reason why art and meaning should be so agonisingly drawn out, and so painful to bear. If you want to see a film land somewhere between the extremes of glitzy Hollywood plastic fantastic and hours of muddy vodka swigging, try the Korean-Chinese Bin Jip (3-Iron). It's artsy and surprising, but also to-the-point and fun.

Brilliant!

[Pravilov · 10/10 · 15 February 2006]

Strangiest movie that brings us back to so-called "parallel cinematograph" that used to be in ex-USSR in 80-s. Wonderful hand camera (long and wide views at the same tome), actor playing, "parallel" artifacts and so on will definitely bring you a lot of pleasure, especially for those who used to live in that country. See also: - "Nastroyschik" by Kira Muratova; - some early movies by Yufit like "Daddy, Santa Claus is dead". What is something exceptional is its sound - full of screaming birds, industrial sounds. It pressed me down to feel the movie as i needed to feel it. Actor ensemble also deserves to be granted, specifically Shurov - leader of punk-ska band "Leningrad".

This is what we really can call "new Russian cinema".

My best recommendations!

A number of elements

[hte-trasme · 7/10 · 21 September 2014]

I found this film after I had read and enjoyed a novel by Vladimir Sorokin, the scenarist of "4." What I got was an interesting and certainly memorable sight, if not necessarily easy to process or digest all at once.

It's almost possible to see (or, perhaps, imagine) where part of them film is drawn from the literary milieu of the novelist Sorokin, and where it leaves that real of the power of words and moves into an area where arresting cinematic images are the order of the day.

There is a an excellent basic premise for a film here, and one that could go any number of ways -- three lonely people are a bartender meet late at night in a bar; the patrons order drinks and begin to tell stories about their lives that seem to be completely fabricated. And then they start to doubt each other's stories.

This part of the film is precisely paced and acted, heavily atmospheric, and very tightly and fascinatingly written, with sparking dialog.

After this section, though. The tone shifts dramatically, and we follow the three protagonists home to different lives that are shown in a slow-paced way with many quiet shots that linger on disparate details. Most dramatic seems to be the life of the rough-dealing meat salesman who comes home to a melancholy, overly-meticulous, father petrified of germs.

But we follow the call-girl mostly, and the film dwells on the squalor of her setting as she takes the train to small village to attend the funeral of a girl who led the making of bread-chewed dolls to sell. The following images of massed geriatric and bread=chewing and pig- eating are very striking and maybe deliberately unpleasant. And to be perfectly frank, the digression that the film leaves its opening scenes for is just less interesting.

As it stands, this film contains both strikingly committed surrealism and outré imagery in its later two fourths, and mysterious, deftly written drama around themes like the superficiality of the knowledge we have of the world around us and the need to sensationalize our lives for others in the first quarter. I can't help but feel like I'd had been more satisfied if it had continued in its first vein.

A promising beginning degenerates into boredom

[rasecz · 4/10 · 28 April 2006]

I have yet to read a negative professional review of this movie. I guess I must have missed something. The beginning is intriguing, the three main characters meet late at night in an otherwise empty bar and entertain each other with invented stories. That's the best part. After the three go their separate ways, the film splits into three threads. That's when boredom sets in. Certainly, the thread with the Felliniesque babushkas who make dolls out of chewed bread is at first an eye opening curiosity. Unfortunately, the director beat this one to death, even injecting a wild plot line that leads nowhere in particular. Bottom line: a two-hour plot-thin listlessness. If you suffer from insomnia, view it in bed and you will have a good night sleep.

4 legs of a table makes it stable

[JuguAbraham · 7/10 · 4 May 2020]

4 stray dogs on the street open the film. 4 persons (3 customers and a bartender) accidentally meet at a bar late night. The three drinkers make up their alternate fictional professions. The woman among them is one of 4 sisters. This woman Marina, (played by actress Marina Vovchenko) meets up with two of her other sisters (played by real life sisters, if we go by their surnames and physical similarity). The fourth sister just died. Dogs are everywhere, following all the characters--at the meat factory, at the village to eat up the dolls (made up of chewed up bread!), following the thief who robs the watch on the hand of one of the initial three drinkers at the bar. There is a Muslim who breeds bizarre round piglets (genetically modified?) and kicks a dog (2 animals devout Muslims hate to deal with) and is promptly reprimanded for his action by a non-Muslim. 4 planes take off with prisoners who are forcibly trained to be soldiers. The village reminds one of the derelict world of Tarkovsky's "Stalker" The odd male in the all-female village commits suicide.

There is some fascinating elements to the film (script by Vladimir Sorokin. Does the film belong to the director Ilya Khrzhanovslky (his debut feature film) or to Sorokin or to both? The film is audacious and critical of modern Russia.reminding one at times of Joseph Heller's "Catch 22." Somewhere, the mad script comes together. Reminds one of another debut film --this time from China--Bo Hu's "An Elephant Sitting Still" (2018), This film could have had an alternate fitting title "4 dogs not sitting still."

A young generations defiant social commentary at Russias past and present

[mef_imdb · 9/10 · 17 October 2005]

Telling three peoples stories that meet in a late night bar "4" shows two different sides of contemporary Russia. Moscow, which stands as a symbol for modernism, globalism and Russia's post soviet present and future, and a village outside Moscow in the countryside where the "old" Russia is at home. A small population of village people is trying to survive by selling hand made puppets to unnamed buyers. Along with the story of one of the people in the bar who unwillingly shares a flat with his age old father this major part of the film deals with Russia's post war generation who is left to age and die unable to be of any more use to modern Russia anymore, masterfully visualized by portraying father and son in a master - servant relationship in another of the film's episodes.

The abandoned old generation, defunct families and the refusal and alienation of the younger generation with its elders traditions are one of the major topics of Chetyre. The extreme length and detail and explicity in which certain scenes are shot make this film tough to watch for some people. Russia is going through a tragic change. The film reflects this change in its use of sometimes painfully repetitive or over length narrative and the sheer excessiveness of some scenes. Nevertheless these elements fulfill it's purpose of delivering a social commentary that will make the audiences think long after the curtains have been lowered.

Rough, brutal and politically incorrect and a testament to Russias volatile times shown from the stand point of a young Russian generation that refuses the old set of rules and struggles to find its own values. Incredibly strong in some instances I consider this film as equally powerful and provocative a piece as Eisenstein's Tankship Potjemkin could have been in it's time. A brave movie that is meant to stimulate and polarize.

Interesting, but something is missing

[shusei · 7/10 · 24 May 2006]

I have just seen this film by Russian DVD. Technically it is a very interesting film. It is a really a contemporary cinema art, in the sense that we now live in the time after the cold war, after the end of typical genre films and studio system.

This film has nothing in common with classic cinema before 1980s. From aesthetic point of view it is a clearest example of a Russian postmodernist cinema,which has existed. in fact, from 1980s.Before the beginning of the Perestroika such a stream was limited in the circle of independent filmmakers and officially banned films of some directors. Now almost all the films of that trend is available to Russian and foreign people. Yes, they are not banned, people can see such films on VHS or DVDs,if not in theaters.

I wonder if contemporary Russian film-goers can see in this work someone sympathetic to, or even somewhat common with, themselves.

Well, we have heard and read about the Past of Soviet Union, cruelty of the totalitarian regime. We have watched it in the cinema of Alexei German. I know my Russian friends today live utterly normal life. I cannot understand why this almost fictional harshness must be shown to viewers today.

Well, it is a postmodernist film, such as that of Michael Haneke or other intelligent Europen filmmakers. This is really a respectable cinema art, but I feel something missing in it, especially when compared it with old Russian films(they are called by Russians as "nashe staroe kino"--"our old cinema"). This simple word expresses ideal relationship between film and film-lover. "Andrei Rublyev" and "My friend, Ivan Lapshin", for example,have been favorite films of many Russian people. They loved these films. But I can not imagine my Russian friends, who are normal and intelligent people, could love "4".

Maybe I am not right. Maybe someday "4" may become one of favorite films of Russian people. But if it will happen, surely not in such a way, as with "nashe staroe kino".

Waste of time...................

[sjoerdvdbos · 1/10 · 16 May 2005]

I agree with the previous comment, the beginning of the movie is quite good, and get's you wandering about what is to come....... Which is nothing. All open story lines remain open; two characters who at first seemed like they might be of some importance are completely left out of the picture, save for 1 or 2 very short scenes. I wander if Ilya wouldn't have done better to just completely leave them out.... As for the one remaining character, nothing is done with her either. She just visits some god-awful place, and suddenly the movie isn't about her anymore, but about some geriatric witches who spend their days making dolls out of bread, drinking homemade vodka, and apparently flashing each other. Some may say the movie does well in showing a society crumbling, like the judges of the IFFR, but for me it is just bad taste, bad camera-work, a lousy script and frightfully bad direction. Therefor I can not be as generous as my predecessor when it comes to grading: 1!

Russian controversy

[marenqo · 10/10 · 28 February 2005]

Having seen Ilya Khrzhanovsky debut film movie had the Rotterdam film festival, made me understand what Russia's cinematic potential is. Khrjanovsky's 4 is definitely a must see for every admirer of Russian cinema and the Russian spirit.

4 was banned or censored in Russia because of its controversial and power-undermining nature towards Russia's political decision makers. The movie is based on a script by Vladimir Sorokin, who is known to be a radical writer who has challenged numerous taboos in Russian culture.

4 follows the story in several episodes of 3 different people in Moscow. Because of their absurdity, these episodes are as much realistic as they are unimaginable. The opening of the film sets the whole atmosphere, introducing three characters who happen to meet in an anonymous bar. In the long bar scene, the viewer gets the chance to learn the intriguing and controversial details of their lives.

The bars scene is Khrzhanovsk's introduction to the question: "what is to believe and what is not?". Throughout the movie the viewer gets the chance to puzzle the pieces and to make his/ her judgment.

I most definitely enjoyed watching 4 and thought it was one of the best (if not THE best) movies of 2004. Ilya Khrzhanovsk's 4 won several prices in Rotterdam, tough be careful; this movie is not for meant for the average (Hollywood) movie goer .

9/10

Russian question(ary).

[buonanotte · 6/10 · 23 December 2007]

I must say that the opening sequence is just stunning and brings you in a visually outstanding atmosphere. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the quality of the surface is not completely reflected on the inside.

Characters are well played but I wish they had something more interesting to talk about. The dialogues are probably just what they are meant to be: excuses to chat up someone in a bar and give your opinion about what's going on in your country...

The film moves from the city and its stories, to the outskirts and its rumours. Alcohol, boredom and desperation find always a way to be present. This movie is a bit like "City of god", without the effort of a positive story-line. What I've seen so far seems a fake (and gloriously good-looking) scoop on modern Russia. I think that the photography and the sound-design deserve a special mention. I also notice a fine creativity in some concepts (dogs biting dolls) but I still feel the lack of something.

I think that 6/10 is well deserved because the movie is well crafted but I definitely hope that Khrzhanovsky's next one will be better.

My take on why it was banned

[Voland-4 · 4/10 · 10 June 2006]

Perhaps being a former Moscovite myself and having an elastic sense of humor prevents me from tossing this movie into the 'arthouse/festival crap' trashcan. It's not the greatest film of 2005, nor is it complete garbage. It just has a lot of problems. I also sincerely doubt this movie was banned due to any 'ideological fears', or 'conservative taboos' or any other reason this movie might conversely be called 'courageous' and 'uncompromising' abroad. It was banned because the censors knew 99% of the Russian film-goers would find it offensive because of the bad taste exercised during the shooting and editing of this otherwise dull film.

So we have a strong opening shot. Wonderful sound design, excellent premise - laden with meaning and symbolism. The usage and placement of symbols will consistently be of the film's strongest aspects (not that the number 4 is a daunting visual challenge). Over the next 40 minutes we have an equally strong setup. An amusing and well-written bar conversation among the 3 (main?) characters, and we feel pathos for these people, the great country of Russia, the human condition and all that. Then the movie starts slowing down. We begin to wonder what -yawn- lies ahead.

The rest is quite boring, simply put. Sure, the guy in the village tugs the heartstrings, and there are some slightly amusing moments. Nice sound, sure. But the enjoyment of this movie, not to mention the plot, are seriously compromised by the pacing problems. And this, this lack of a payoff for sitting through all the (nicely-shot) abject misery and bleakness, is what ultimately will make people angry at the 'offensive' stuff (personally, the main offensive scene bordered on being endearing, in that pathetic way harmless drunks can appear).

If you want to watch an enjoyable movie where Russians get wasted for prolonged periods of time (the entire film), watch Particulars of the National Hunt. Much more rewarding post-Soviet stuff. So yeah, a 4 out of 10 for 4, nice and symbolic of my post-mediocre-film condition.

This is movie!

[adam15-1 · 9/10 · 10 June 2005]

I liked "4" very much. Its nothing to Hollywood-addicts but it really uses the media in great way. If you accept that the story is in some way a spherical aberration there's are lots of scenes who are really spicy. It shows in a humoristic and absurd way some views of maybe Russians prejudice but also intensified. The long walk in the mud is relay long but a nice and artistic way to show it. The party and drinking with the old Russians woman are gorgeous. The long dialog in the beginning is interesting and it works... The theme 4 (things) is an entertaining thread and many very very fine just nice scenes with a great photo. It's a Russian "shortcut"

Self-indulgent,, pointless ugliness

[bankie_bhoy · 3/10 · 18 September 2005]

The worst movie I have seen in quite a while. Interesting first half with some engaging, terse dialogue among dubious characters in a late-night bar. The movie then degenerates into a shapeless succession of scenes aiming for visual shock (read disgust) without any redeeming observations or lessons in humanity or anything else.

I wanted to walk out, but the director was present at this showing and my politeness preventing me from showing him disrespect. Still, time is precious (as the director himself observed in his intro) and I really begrudge the time I wasted on the second half of this one.

Saving graces were the three main characters in the first half of the movie, especially the female lead.

Masterpiece!!!!

[acid_grinder · 10/10 · 9 March 2006]

An extraordinary work that was written by an amazing Russian writer, Vladimir Sorokin, and directed by a young talented Russian director, Ilya Khrzhanovsky. This film is a real trip that starts of with being a funny story, but by the time it ends, leave the viewer shocked among the other feelings! The great directing and sound directing creates an astonishing atmosphere and visual beauty thought the whole film, making it a very "acid" experience. These combined with Sorokins madness, creates a real different trip, for the people who likes good/surreal/different cinema as much as I do. I watched this film many times, but i still didn't get enough. I hope non Russian speakers will enjoy it, and understand the symbolism of some things in it...the dogs, the tractors.....

I rated it 10, and for me it is the best Russian film since quiet a while...Check it out, you wont regret!!!

Excercise for patience and shame

[koenjer · 4/10 · 19 April 2005]

The film is worth watching only if you stop it after half an hour. It starts of with funny conversations in a bar and makes one expect a good, funny story is to come. Well, I can tell you it will not come. It will deteriorate in minutes into a movie that challenges your patience as well as your feelings of shame for the actors to an extend you will probably not be pleased to witness.

In an interview I heard that the director wanted to express in this film the feeling of a loss of identity that, according to him, the majority of the people in this globalizing world experience. I was amazed to hear that. Am I living in the same world he lives in? OK a lot of people do walk around in the same clothes as mine and listen to the same music and all, but that doesn't make me feel like I am losing my identity. What does Khrzhanosvky think, that we are not more than the clothes we wear and the movies we watch? Am I shortsighted or is he?

Well my vote: the good start of the movie saves it from getting a 1, a decent 4 is my conclusion.

about sounds

[bunlargusel · 8/10 · 15 November 2008]

i don't wanna write about same details that other people mentioned before.Anyone noticed how the director used all natural sounds in the movie?????this movie has no particular song during the movie but all sounds or voices make great impression.when And also ending screen has no any song either.it's just so natural and remarkable like other Russian movies.In this film you'll see why people do smtn bad we ciritize easily.u can see why people steal,use each other.When sittin in a nice chair and critizin people we feel like we're great.I feel like as much as we use or cheat people some other people're sufferin because of us....greetings to Russia